Breeders’ Cup: Smith says Tamara earns high expectations

Two of Mike Smith’s most memorable Breeders’ Cup races were on fillies and mares at Santa Anita.

There was Zenyatta’s 2009 Classic victory that Trevor Denman famously described as “un-be-lievable.”

Memorable in a very different was Smith’s ride on Songbird in the 2016 Distaff. She would have been a winner if not for Gary Stevens coming along on Beholder, who triumphantly got her nose down at the wire.

Move ahead seven years. Stevens is retired, and Smith will be riding Beholder’s spitting-image, 2-year-old daughter Tamara on Friday in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

“They have similar markings,” Smith said. “They’re the same color.”

Two beautiful bays. Beholder had the hint of a star on her forehead. Tamara’s might be a little more prominent. But just a little.

“Beholder was a bit taller than Tamara is,” Smith said. “And Beholder was a bit more aggressive than Tamara. Tamara is pretty nice. She’s more of a sweetheart. She’s fun to be around, although she’s not very tall. She’s long.”

What really counts is what Smith said next in describing the likely favorite in the Juvenile Fillies. She inherited mom’s talent.

“She’s very, very, very athletic,” he said. “She does things that just 2-year-olds aren’t supposed to do. I mean she just blows your mind. She’s just always been way above average.”

So it is that 2-for-2 Tamara, the runaway winner last month in the Del Mar Debutante (G1), will be Smith’s best chance to extend his record for most Breeders’ Cup wins by a jockey. His 27 wins are eight better than fellow Hall of Famer John Velázquez. His $38,344,605 in earnings are also the most among riders in what is going on 40 years of Breeders’ Cup history.

Smith was expected to have three rides in this year’s championships. That was before he had to cut short a workout Saturday for Breeders’ Cup Classic contender Geaux Rocket Ride, who was scheduled for surgery Sunday to repair a displaced condylar fracture in his right front leg.

That leaves Speed Boat Beach, who was pre-entered for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, to be Smith’s other assignment. It will be his first time racing the Grade 3 winner who is trained by Bob Baffert.

To be sure, though, the anticipation is swirling around Tamara, who was sired by two-time Grade 1 winner Bolt d’Oro. Before her 6 3/4-length triumph in the Del Mar Debutante earned her a 91 Beyer Speed Figure, according to Daily Racing Form, she won her 6 1/2-furlong debut at Del Mar by 2 1/4 lengths. If the expectations for the Spendthrift Farm homebred are realized, it may be the only time she is not favored in the foreseeable future.

“I didn’t know that she didn’t go off favored,” Smith said in an interview for Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “That’s how much we thought of her. We liked her a lot, although there was a filly in there that she beat that day that had already run once and was pretty impressive.”

That was Hope Road, a $200,000 Quality Road filly who was the 8-5 favorite coming off a troubled, dead-heat second as a first-time starter. The next time out for her was the Del Mar Debutante, in which she finished 11th, 21 lengths behind Tamara.

If that race was a crossroads, Tamara clearly found the fast lane to both early success and raised expectations.

“We had high hopes, but she’s kind of exceeded those each time she’s run,” her Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella said. “You can hope and try not to get yourself too excited until they show it to you. And she sure did a good job of that.”

Mandella also looked after Beholder during a five-year career that landed the four-time Eclipse Award-winning mare in the Hall of Fame last summer. The achievements began to pile up early with a win in the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Mandella believes Tamara is ahead of mom’s early pace.

“I’d say she’s ahead of Beholder at this stage, because Beholder had some quirks about her, mentally.” Mandella told reporters during a conference call Wednesday. “I didn’t know that we could get her two turns until just a couple weeks before the Breeders’ Cup. I had the feeling that we could. And it took, up to that point, for me to get the confidence that I could get her two turns, because she was just fast and strong, and she didn’t want to be told what to do.”

Tamara will be called on to take that step forward herself Friday, stretching from seven furlongs to the 1 1/16 miles around two turns on Santa Anita’s main track.

“I don’t think the distance will bother her,” Smith said. “You haven’t been around two turns, so that’s always in your head, because you hadn’t done it. But she’s on her home (course). She’s breezed a bunch of time and run into that turn pretty quick. It shouldn’t bother any I wouldn’t think.”

The bigger challenge might not be the end of the race but the beginning. The comment lines in her past performances show Tamara having stumbled at the start of her debut victory and getting bumped early in the Del Mar Debutante.

“She actually hasn’t gotten away clean,” Smith said. “Hopefully in the Breeders’ Cup she will this time. She’s just so talented, and she’s very quick. Even that day she got bumped leaving the gate, it wasn’t a jump or two when she was right up there with (pacesetter Pushiness). As a matter of fact, I kind of had to stay out away from her so I didn’t get in front of her any sooner, to be honest with you. We hit the turn, and she just naturally opened up her stride. She switched leads, and it was pretty much over.”

Not only was Smith aboard Tamara for both her races but also her final workout before the Breeders’ Cup. She was clocked at 1:00.8 on Saturday going five furlongs.

“She knows she has to be good, and she does,” Smith told FanDuel TV after the workout. “She’s just waiting for that opportunity to let her play a little bit. I was happy to see the way she came back. She was kind of on her toes and squealing a little bit. It was a great work. We wanted a minute and change, and she went a minute really, really easy.”

Now it is just a matter of keeping Tamara happy and waiting for Friday to roll around. Oh, yes. There is the matter of managing the hype. Smith said she deserves it.

“I mean from what she’s already done,” he said. “She’s only run twice, but the way she’s done it as well has been well within herself. Her numbers show it. The time shows it.”